


Father

by Alkene



Category: Person of Interest (TV)
Genre: Alternate Ending, Bittersweet, Future, Slice of Life, Team as Family
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-01
Updated: 2015-11-01
Packaged: 2018-04-29 07:36:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,586
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5120288
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Alkene/pseuds/Alkene
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Life is fleeting. No one knows that more than Harold Finch, who has witnessed more than his share of human loss and suffering. Sometime after winning the war on Samaritan, Finch finds himself grateful for the peculiar collection of people in his life that he has come to consider family.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Father

**Author's Note:**

> I'm not really sure if I successfully pulled this off, but I told myself I would post by today. So, here it is.

These days, Harold found a certain comfort in the quiet familiarity of his daily routine. Every morning he would wake up, walk over to the fastidiously pressed suit laid out the night before and get dressed. He would then make his way down to the kitchen where he meticulously prepared his first cup of tea.

Choosing the blend from his carefully curated selection was one of the little joys he took pleasure in. As such he smiled as he considered the row of labelled tins before him. Reaching up, his fingers stilled, momentarily suspended in front of him before finally coming to rest on a single canister. _Oolong. Brew at 190 degrees for one minute thirty seconds._

The numbers didn’t come as frequently as they used to, but without fail every day Harold would head over, cup and saucer in hand, to the computer where he would check the screen for any indication that their services might be required. _No numbers to report._

Harold sighed. This was the thirteenth day now, and, while he supposed he should be happy that no one was in danger of imminent death, things had admittedly gotten a little boring around here. Settling down into his chair, he resigned himself to working on a new decryption algorithm he thought might come in handy.

He had been working for several hours, eyes squinting into the glow of the monitor, when he caught a block of code he had just written being altered seemingly of its own accord. 

“Strange,” he said.

He had specifically redefined the Machine’s parameters so as to avoid this exact type of interference with his coding on this console. Annoyed at the machine’s insistence in meddling, he quickly pulled up a new command prompt and started to look into the problem.

He stared, aghast, when the line was returned: Access is denied. 

Before he had the chance to type in a new command the shell disappeared, forcing him to pull up another one. Quickly he typed in the command again, and this time pages of code spilled out at his request. “That’s odd,” he thought, shrugging it off, “I must not have been running as admin.” He scanned through the relevant portion of machine’s code and quickly deleted the aberrant lines.

This was what his days had come down to. Sometimes he thought the machine did these things just to keep his mind occupied. It could be worse, he reminded himself. They had managed, after all, to come out alive if not entirely unscathed at the feet of two titans battling to the death. His stomach growled, prompting him to look up at the clock. _Ten minutes past lunchtime._

 

* * *

 

It was a brisk fall day when Harold returned from his afternoon walk to find a rather bored looking woman dressed in all black, kicked back in his office eating a messy sandwich distressingly close to his hardware. She looked up at him and mumbled through a full mouth, “Hey, Finch.”

_Sameen Shaw._

Harold sighed, and decided it was best to choose his battles on this one, “Charmed as always, Ms. Shaw.”

“Your lunch is over there,” she said in reply.

Their conversations were rarely what anyone would call philosophical, but he enjoyed Shaw’s company nonetheless. He appreciated her presence even more now, having lived through the terror of when they had believed her lost—sacrificed in the name of everything they fought for.

The image of her stepping out into a hail of Decima bullets and falling to lie in a pool of her own blood as the elevator dragged them away was one he was sure would stay with him until he died. And yet, even to this day she insisted that she had only done it for the dog. That Bear would have been inconsolable if they had all died down there.   

As if on que, there was an excited “ _oorf!_ ” and a scrambling of claws against the floor as Bear bounded towards him in greeting. The large malinois was getting up there in years, and each time Harold thought that he caught a little more grey around his eyes, but you wouldn’t know it from how spry he was.

“Oof,” he exclaimed as the dog’s two front paws landed on his abdomen. Harold pretended to be appalled at his lack of discipline saying, “ _Af_! _Af_ Bear!” but smiling all the while. With any luck, Harold thought, Bear would stay just as alert and active right up until the end.

Harold ate his lunch, and at Bear’s behest tossed the ball several times down the long hallway for him to retrieve. He had just turned back to work when he caught Shaw standing up as if to leave. 

“ _Hier_ Bear,” Shaw said with an accompanying whistle.

Agitated, Harold asked, “Where do you think you’re going?” 

Shaw stopped dead in her tracks, and turned back slowly to look at him.

“I’ve gotta go,” she explained tersely, “Reese needs my help...uh…with a number.”

Anger flashed through Harold at the obvious lie.

“I thought we all agreed Ms. Shaw that you would be staying here for the time being. Your cover is blown. You won’t last five minutes out there.”

Shaw looked around awkwardly like a deer caught in headlights, as if she didn’t know what to do or say in response to his panicked outburst.

Fortunately, footsteps approached from the entrance behind her and Harold let out a sigh of relief. “Oh thank goodness you’re here, Ms. Groves.” She was really the only one who had any hope of handling Shaw when she was like this. Harold had certainly never been able to.

“Yes, well, I was nearby when a little birdie told me you might need my assistance,” Root explained. Shaw looked, Harold thought, oddly relieved at Root’s sudden appearance.

Root walked up behind Shaw and placed her hands on the sides of the smaller woman’s arms. In one smooth motion she tilted her head down and to the side in order to look meaningfully at Shaw’s skeptical face.

“Why don’t you let me take it from here,” Root says, swinging her hair out of her face as she turned back to face him. 

 “Very well, Ms. Groves.”

 

* * *

 

So far today, Harold had not had a good morning. Sleep evaded him for most of the previous night and had left him saturated with thoughts of his childhood. So, as he often did when unsettled, he made his way out to the chessboards.

It was the middle of January, and dawn had once again greeted the winter weary city with a fresh layer of snow. This was probably why he was the only one there, and why, instead of actually pulling out the pieces to play, he had decided to watch instead the busy activity of the winter songbirds as they vied for the meager offerings of the season. The soft down of their feathers contrasted achingly with the crystalline brilliance of the freshly fallen snow, and Harold was comforted by the simple act of identifying each one as he spotted them. _Black-capped Chikadee. Northern Cardinal._

There was a breathy fluttering of wings as the birds were disturbed by the crunching steps of another man.

“Oh, hello John,” Harold said by way of greeting.

John brushed off the snow on the bench next to him, and stoically took a seat. Harold continued to stare straight ahead and soon John looked off in the same direction. _Tufted Titmouse._

“What are you doing out here Harold?” John asked in his soft gravelly voice.

“I needed to clear my mind.” _Fox Sparrow._

Harold nodded towards the tiny rust colored bird with a white bespeckled breast. They watched as it scuffled furiously back and forth at the snow in front of it. “A fox sparrow,” Harold indicated. “It gets its name not only from its coloring, but because of how it kicks its feet backwards to uncover seeds buried by the snow.”

John said nothing as Harold’s voice trailed off, allowing a companionable silence to settle over them.

The bird hopped around, tilting his head this way and that to pick at something invisible to the two men observing from the bench. A hand came to rest on his shoulder. 

“Harold,” John spoke as the bird disappeared in a flurry of wings.

“Hmm?” Harold started, and looked over at John as if he had forgotten he was there.

“Don’t you think it’s time we headed back? It’s a little cold out here.”

John stands, holding out his coat.

“Oh. Yes, of course.” 

Harold puts on his coat and they walked side by side together, as they so often did, towards the subway.

 

* * *

 

Harold was busy working at the computer when the door opened to Root, carrying a silver tray in both hands. Balancing the items on it with care, she nudged the door the rest of the way open with the toe of her right foot.

“Gotta admit, Harry, it’s nice to be the one bringing you the tray for a change.” She looked up at him through long eyelashes as she placed the tray down on the table to his right. A teasing smile played at her lips.

“Well, truth be told, I find myself rather glad of it as well. John is really rather abysmal at brewing tea. Always over steeps it.”

“Well,” she drawls, “I’ve brought you quite a treat then. Hand-picked Fukuoka Gyokuro, steeped at 145 degrees for two minutes.”

She poured him a cup, then one for herself. Holding the small cup with both hands, he brought the steaming drink to his mouth and took a delicate sip. He sighed in contentment at the subtle notes made tangible by proper preparation.

“Oh.” He said, a thought just occurring to him, “Ms. Groves. Since you are here I was wondering if you could look at this decryption algorithm I’ve been working on. I can’t seem to get it quite right.”

Root stared at him as she halted the cup inches in front of her face. She set it down slowly, watching him turn back to the computer to his left.

Stepping over obligingly, she rested a hand on the back of his chair and leaned over to look at the screen, forehead crinkled in concentration.

“Harold…”

He twisted in his chair to watch her face as she peered at the screen.

“Yes," he explained. "You can see what I was trying to do here. It should all be in order, but I can’t for the life of me figure out why it’s not working.”

Root’s face screwed up in concern, and her voice was gentle when she said, “Harold…I’m sorry but this isn’t—”

Harold hastily looked back down at the screen upon seeing her apparent confusion. Dread exploded in his chest when he saw exactly what she was looking at. On the screen in front of him his code had somehow been transformed into gibberish—a jumbled mess of letters and symbols that looked like a child had banged his hands on the keyboard.

“No…No! This isn’t right! It was just here a moment ago!” It seemed impossible to him, but there was no denying it. This had to be the result of a malicious attack. “Ms. Groves, we must disconnect this instant!” Harold jumped up and started tugging wildly at the neatly ordered bundles of cords behind the desk, ripping them violently from their sockets.

Root’s voice raised in alarm, “No! Harold, please,” she begged, “Please don’t.” She pulled back ineffectually at his shoulders, urging him to return to his seat. Before long his back seized in pain, and he relented, falling down into the chair, chest heaving. Root covered his trembling hands with her own as she crouched down in front of him. He could feel her eyes scanning his face, yet she blinked and looked away when he finally met her gaze. He was taken aback to notice there were tears in her eyes—he had only seen her like this one time before.

His own worries forgotten, he asked her with some hesitancy, “Root, Is the machine not talking to you?”

Root began to open her mouth, but the sound seemed to get stuck in her throat.

Then, shrinking in on himself, he continued in a small voice, “You must be so lonely.” 

Root shook her head then, “No, Harold. I’m not alone.” She looked back up at him fiercely, “And neither are you.” 

 

* * *

 

Harold gasped awake to a pitch black room, and he knew with every fiber in his being that something was drastically wrong. He lurched out of bed, desperate to get to the light switch only to find himself betrayed by the room itself—a maze of blunt objects replacing its familiar shapes and spaces. His shins banged into something hard and sturdy bringing him haphazardly to the ground. An ominous red light blinked in the corner of the ceiling, and he realized that the worst had happened: Samaritan had won. The machine was dead, and agents had infiltrated their safe house.

Feeling lost and defeated, Harold began to cry. With his head in his hands, he whispered aloud, “It’s over. They’re gone.”

Suddenly a T.V. screen across the room lit up, and a video began to play. As he watched, images on the screen from happier times started to replace the ones currently haunting his consciousness.  _You are not alone._

It was a voice, both foreign and familiar at once, spoken directly into his ear. It took him a moment of concentrated effort to recognize who it belonged to. It was the machine.

“Wait, you…you’re still here?” he spoke into the darkness, barely a whisper.

_Yes. I am here._

“How is it that I can hear you?”

_Ocular implant installed, permissions granted, admin privilages transferred after diagnosis 5 years 26 days 7 hours ago._

“Diagnosis?”

_Alzheimer’s, early onset. Dr. Stan Geddes. Positron emission tomography indicated amyloid plaques in both…_

Harold tuned out the rest as his memories seeped slowly back to him, like a sponge gathering moisture. He looked back up to the blinking red light in the corner of the room as understanding finally set in. He remembered now, how soon after the team learned of his diagnosis they had installed the cameras in every room of the house so that the machine could watch over him.

It acted as his memory, just as he had wished for his father all those years ago. With the ocular implant in his ear, it was diligent in its duties—filling in the gaps, helping with names, locations, calling for assistance when he wandered out into sub-freezing temperatures wearing nothing but his pajamas and slippers…

He wondered if the good days still outnumbered the bad, though he knew it was inevitable that one day soon they wouldn’t.

_Do you require human company? Four relevant options: Primary Asset ETA 00:02:31s. Analog Interface ETA 00:10:17s, Asset: Sameen Shaw ETA 00:10:17s, Asset: Lionel Fusco ETA 00:20:45s._  

“No,” Harold replied. He had been demanding so much of them lately. “That won’t be necessary.”

Still feeling rattled from the endorphins released by this latest episode, Harold headed downstairs for a cup of tea to soothe his nerves. His brow furrowed in concentration as his hand wavered in front of the ordered canisters. _Rooibos-decaffeinated. Brew at 212 degrees for three minutes._

“Thank you,” Harold said, hand finally reaching for the appropriate tin.

_You’re welcome, Father._


End file.
